On Wednesday, Ally Financial announced that it will renew its exclusive sponsorship of the TIME Dealer of the Year program through 2021. Ally and TIME also officially opened the nomination period for the 2016 TIME Dealer of the Year program, encouraging nominations at last week’s annual Automotive Trade Association Executives (ATAE) Summer Conference in Dearborn, […] [Read More]

Digital marketing software-as-a-service company Outsell announced Tuesday the results of its second quarter, highlighted by the company’s announcement of its customer engagement platform’s support for dealers of virtually all OEMs. Its engagement solution, Outsell Fuel, was previously only available to dealers that represented a select set of manufacturers. After its expansion, Outsell reports that 20 […] [Read More]

As Music City Auto Auction of Nashville added another commercial consignor to its lineup, Plaza Auto Auction of Iowa is preparing for its 52nd anniversary celebration in August with the introduction of Edge Simulcast to its weekly sale events. Owner Mark Greb explained Plaza AA launched Simulcast selling earlier this month on all five lanes, […] [Read More]

As used-vehicle retail same-store sales increased 16 percent year-over-year during the second quarter, Lithia Motors reported on Wednesday that gross profit on those retailed used units softened by 7.3 percent. Nonetheless, Lithia generated adjusted net income of $49.4 million in Q2; the highest quarterly net income in company history and a 40-percent increase over the […] [Read More]

Sonic Automotive management reiterated the four steps it wants to maintain that’s associated with One Sonic-One Experience, the company’s stand-alone pre-owned model. The strategy has been gradually rolled out since last summer, and the dealer group anticipates that it will be in place at about 40 of its 127 stores by the end of the […] [Read More]

AutoNation hosted its second quarterly conference call of the year on Wednesday, outlining its gains in several metrics. The dealer group’s retail used-vehicle unit sales increased by 9 percent overall in the second quarter, jumping from 52,656 units in Q2 2014 to 57,370 units in Q2 2015. Judging the same metric for the first half […] [Read More]

J.D. Power announced the results of its 2015 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) study this week, the rankings of which show the growing usage of safety technologies in new vehicles make them more attractive to shoppers and vehicle owners. The APEAL study, which allows owns to evaluate their vehicles across 77 categories, combines […] [Read More]

Westlake Financial Services and Equifax now have more data to support their argument that subprime auto financing can benefit individuals with soft credit histories, rather than create a negative situation some regulators and consumer advocates might believe. Equifax recognized Westlake Financial Services on Tuesday as the national finance company whose customers saw the highest credit […] [Read More]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau celebrated its fourth birthday on Tuesday. Among the individuals on hand to cheer the occasion were the lawmakers who authored the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB. Instead of just cake and party hats, bureau officials gave a rundown of their accomplishments since coming into existence on July 21, 2011. […] [Read More]

FICO is offering finance companies strategy recommendations for those who fear that they’re reviewing too many applications for fraud, yet still finding fraudsters on the books. FICO also questioned whether finance companies have a clear definition of what is fraud and what is bad debt. To answer those questions and more, FICO is hosting the hour-long […] [Read More]